Driving Home the Lesson
Mistress Vincenza pulls my hand off the wheel. “Your lesson can end here.”
I dejectedly lower my head. “Sorry, Mistress.”
“I’ve seen worse.” She leans over and fixes my hair. “We’re getting out here to grab supplies, and you’ll have an opportunity to improve before your next lesson.”
“Am I studying a book on steam cars?”
“No—experience is more practical for learning these skills—you’re sleeping for a full night.”
I graze my hand over my hair. “I think I might like to just keep it in a ponytail after today.”
“It would be less inconvenient for me,” she huffs.
I narrow my eyes.
Is she implying that she’ll keep doing my hair? I wouldn’t mind.
“Come on.” She steps out from the car. “You’re leading until you make a mistake.”
“Of course, Mistress.”
We find our way into a large warehouse of frozen goods, mostly bulk food. Technically the reagents we’re getting are in bulk, but a bulk shipment of limestone powder is barely a jar, whereas everyone around us are carting carcasses larger than me.
“Stop.”
I freeze.
The wooden floor creeks under her steps. “While I did inscribe ‘salt water,’ I intended for you to procure the extract.“ She places back the jug I grabbed and replaces it with several vials. “I also didn’t specify that it was the bromide I was interested in.”
“Am I going to have to memorize your shorthand on these lists?”
“Until you’re writing them.”
Just a few more decades then.
“Which I’d give only a season with your level of progress,” she adds.
“...Aren’t I progressing slowly? I haven’t even cast a spell yet.”
Without any hint of emotion or insincerity, she states, “I accounted for your lack of intelligence.”
I don’t even know how much shame I should feel for that. She didn’t hate me for it, but I don’t need her endorsement to hate myself. I just lower my head and follow down the list.
“Stop again,” she repeats.
“What is it?” I ask in a thin, dying voice.
“I was being facetious for an ill-thought joke. You are a surprisingly intelligent woman, and I don’t intend to imply otherwise.” Her monotone voice is hard to discern for anything genuinely apologetic.
“Why did you choose ‘surprisingly intelligent’ to make me feel better?”
“I’m not going to hold your learning disabilities as a mark against you.”
“What?”
“...You have a learning disability, don’t you?”
“I-I don’t—I don’t… I don’t think so.”
She visibly clenches her teeth. “In the theoretical case, it wouldn’t matter to me. I also had one. You don’t, and that’s mostly acceptable. Next line of your list?”
She… also has one? Why the fuck did I just think ‘also.’ I don’t have one! I think. I hope not.
Oh fuck. What if I do?
I stammer, “Mistress, could I inquire about your—“
“Next line on the list?” she insists.
I, flustered, pull it back into my hand. “Blood? Is that the meat section?”
“No, vampire implements. We’re using human blood and fats.”
The thought of those rituals… I bare my teeth in a smile and push forward.
Everything else comes in easy order; she may even be impressed with me. Or barely satisfied. It’s about the same. But, no complaints is no complaints.
“Vincenza? It’s been so long!” The clerk by the exit excitedly raises her arms. “Are you planning a new parlour event? Am I invited?”
“No. Do the duties of your employment contract and help my apprentice through the payment.”
The clerk looks at me with eyes ready to burst from excitement. “You look so cute besides her!”
“Mina,“ Mistress Vincenza breathes.
“Yes, yes! Okay, let me check everything you have.” The clerk searches through our—pitifully few compared to the cart size—goods, tallying a combined price for each. “Five hundred crescents… You sure you’re not hosting a new event?” she asks with bright eyes.
“No.”
“Aw. But tell me when you do.”
After an exchanged check, we exit to Mistress Vincenza’s car. The engine still has some residual heat, but not enough. Leaving us alone in the near dark, the Great Ring gifting us barely enough light to move around.
“Mistress, could we plan an event?” I slowly ask.
“Training you will be occupying too much of my time.”
There’s always those references to who she was before. The remnants haunt her like an orbiting ring of debris. Piero celebrates her joy like it’s a ship returning on the horizon. Stella reminisces about tailoring for her. I want to be let in. I want to see what they saw.
“It would be training for me. I should know how you created paying patrons, and I would carry the labor for the project.” I clasp my hands together and stare at the Great Ring, rising from the west and east. “I promise, Mistress, I won’t be a burden on this venture.”
“You are a burden; you will continue to be one.” She drums her fingers on the wheel, rings clicking against the wood. “And I chose the privilege of carrying it. Tell me, what event are you hoping for?”
I clasp my hands together and shift closer to her. “I, uh, read the examples of past events in your manual. I really liked the one where you rented out a bar! Well—I would prefer no alcohol. Milkshakes? If they’re malted, it’s almost like… malted alcohol.”
Her tone doesn’t show anything, but there’s something close to curious rumination in the way her mouth opens and closes before settling on words. “I can’t animate servants to pour for us.”
“I’ll animate them! I’ll…”
Her eyes are dull, soft and pink. I’ve known she’s unpatronized, but I never stopped to consider… Is that why she wasn’t mad at me for not sleeping with Hanna? Is she also afraid?
I swallow and finish, “I’ll get my access to the Ring on the ghoul hunting trip. You can teach me how to animate servants.”
“It’s not so easy. It’s technically simple to animate a corpse, but the requisite bonding is intense, even for Ringborn with scores of consorts. You would need to be close to her, emotionally and physically. Expose your heart.”
“I can expose my heart! I will! I owe it to you, Mistress.”
“You are in no debt to me.” She glances at the gauges, slowly raising the throttle. “I’ll have time during your trip to organize something.”
“Thank you.” It doesn’t feel like it’s enough. But my chest is burning with something difficult to smother, and my words constrict.